Free The Everest Files by Matt Dickinson Page B

than just this marriage.’
    â€˜But it
can
happen,’ Kami insisted. ‘Plenty of people have told me so. If Chandra agrees a price.’
    â€˜Alright,’ he conceded, finally, ‘It can happen that the contract is annulled. But normally it happens because of a terrible sickness, or a death in the family, or some other tragedy.’
    Kami’s father put his head in his hands. He looked so close to absolute despair that for a moment Kami was almost tempted to retract everything he had said, so deeply did he want to free his father from the pain.
    But something held him back.
    â€˜Tell me how you feel about this girl Shreeya,’ his father said at last.
    Kami looked at him directly, surprised to find that at this crucial moment, he did not feel any shame or doubt.
    â€˜I love her, sir. And I will love her for the rest of my life.’
    Kami felt his father’s eyes bore in to him. Such a gaze would normally make him flinch but at that moment he found he could hold the eye contact without fear, for the statement he had just made had come from his heart.
    â€˜We have to do it,’ Kami implored. ‘Please, father, I beg you.’
    His father stood, stepping to the window and looking out across the fields of maize and rice. He sighed deeply and Kami sensed that he had reached a decision.
    â€˜I won’t get involved in this. I don’t agree with any of it,’ his father said emphatically. ‘If anyone is to try and break the contract it is up to you alone. But I warn you that Chandra is a tough man. He might throw you out of the window rather than listen to such talk.’
    Kami’s father cut the conversation at that point and a period of a few days followed in which Kami hardly slept at all.
    Three days later Kami arrived at Laxmi’s family home.
    His stomach was tied in knots. It was the first time he had been to the house and he guessed it would be the last. He announced himself to Laxmi’s seventeen-year-old brother and waited until her father Chandra returned from the fields.
    The man greeted Kami with a courteous ‘Namaste’ before retreating to the yard to wash away the dust and dirt of a hard day tilling the soil. When he came back, Kami was literally shaking with fear; the moment had come and he had no idea how things would work out.
    â€˜I imagine you are here to discuss Laxmi,’ Chandra said, fixing Kami with a cool gaze. ‘Are you ready to take her to your home?’
    A silence fell as Kami wondered how to respond. He had rehearsed these words a thousand times but now it came to the moment he felt tongue tied and lost.
    â€˜I cannot take Laxmi to my house, sir. I … I wish to make my home with another.’
    The words caused an instant shift of mood. A dark shadow swept across Chandra’s face. Laxmi’s father was now staring at him with ill-disguised contempt.
    â€˜I … It’s something that I’ve thought about most seriously, sir.’
    Kami wilted under his acid gaze, he saw himself as a pathetic child next to this experienced and widely respected man. What right did he have to enter his house as the bearer of such news?
    It was wrong.
    But not as wrong as marrying without love.
    â€˜What does your father say?’ Chandra snapped.
    â€˜He says it is not my business to try and change things.’
    Laxmi’s father nodded.
    â€˜So why don’t you listen to him? Do you not respect the wishes of your own father?’
    â€˜Yes, sir, I do. But no matter how much I love and honour him, I cannot marry Laxmi.’
    â€˜But you are
already
married to my daughter,’ Laxmi’s father replied indignantly. ‘You speak of it as some future event but it happened many years ago and you must honour it.’
    â€˜Sir, the truth is this; my heart belongs to another.’
    At that all the blood ran out of the old man’s face and he looked truly desperate.
    â€˜Everything is